


Lettering

by TheMissingMask



Series: Explorations [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingMask/pseuds/TheMissingMask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where did you learn to read?” The question was not sprung from nowhere.  Flint had wondered since meeting the man where a low-standing merchant sailor had learnt to read, not to mention speak so eloquently in both Spanish and English.</p><p>Flint learns where Silver became lettered, finding it to be a story in itself</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lettering

**Author's Note:**

> Just a random little drabble because it has always bothered me how so few people in that world would know how to read and write, and yet Silver does...I also love to delve into Silver's past. :) I hope people don't mind the drabble of it all...

Ever since Silver had lost his leg, he had taken to weathering flares in the injury by reading in Flint’s cabin. The captain had never objected, secretly rather enjoying having someone to share his modest literature collection with. After their relationship had grown, first into a rapport then into friendship, and now into something significantly deeper, they had taken to reading together and discussing the novels on the quieter nights at sea.

Tonight was such a night. The Walrus was being gently carried across the calm ocean by a caressing sea breeze, guiding them back towards the maroon island. The crew were contentedly going about their jobs on deck or entertaining themselves with music and stories in the cool evening air. In the captain’s quarters, Flint was leaning back in his cot, his lover sat between his legs with his head rested on the captain’s chest, nose deep in a Cervantes novel.

Flint’s fingers twirled through thick black curls as he watched Silver’s lips move with the words on the page. It was a habit of his quartermaster, and one that Flint found overly distracting at times, his mind ever wandering the great many other remarkable things those lips could do. Tonight though, his mind ventured down another avenue.

“Where did you learn to read?” The question was not sprung from nowhere. Flint had wondered since meeting the man where a low-standing merchant sailor had learnt to read, not to mention speak so eloquently in both Spanish and English.

Silver tipped his head back to look at his lover before returning his gaze to the volume.

“London.” He flipped the page. “I was living on the streets at the time. One afternoon, when I was in an alley counting the coin in a purse I had just relieved a rich old man of, I heard someone telling a story in the library that backed onto where I was.”

His eyes took on a distant look as he continued to reminisce, evidently in a sharing mood this evening.

“It was a woman. Very well-spoken. Remarkably so… That evening, I snuck into the library and picked up the book I believe she must have been reading from. The lettering was just shapes to me at the time, meaningless, but I had remembered what she said the title to be, and supposed that must match the scrawling on the front of the volume.” He tapped the front of his novel for effect.

“The next day, she was there again. And again, I listened, remembered the title and snuck into the library at night to take in its appearance. This continued for some time. I gradually learnt what certain words and sounds looked like. I began to remember and look at the last sentences she had read, then paragraphs, until eventually I was able to read whole chapters.”

He paused for a moment and seemed to puzzle something over before continuing.

“Then suddenly, one day she wasn’t there. I never knew why. Maybe no one came to listen anymore, or perhaps she simply moved away. In any case, it didn’t much matter, I suppose. Only days later, I was grabbed by some rich fuck and thrown into St. John’s, where literary exploration was not overly high on the list of the boy’s priorities.”

He returned to the book, his story complete. Flint smiled sadly, placed a kiss on the top of Silver’s head and removed the book from his grasp. He held it up in one hand, the other continuing to stroke his love’s hair, and began to read aloud.

As he did so, he remembered how Miranda used to read to him and Thomas on quiet evenings as they sat together beside the fire. Practice, she would say, for her daily recitals at the local library, which she offered freely to anyone who would listen.

Flint wondered if she knew that her audience included a street urchin camped out in the cold alley outside.


End file.
